


The Long Way Home

by teamheadkick



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24403804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamheadkick/pseuds/teamheadkick
Summary: Scotty helps Jaylah recover from the trauma of Borg assimilation. Set shortly after Star Trek: Fleet Command's Borg Arc 3.This probably borders on hurt fic and I'll likely cringe at my own stuff. (No offence to the rest of AO3, though; your 2019 Hugo is well-deserved. :) ) But heck, getting cooped up at home can be a motivator for trying new stuff...Additionally, credit to zombie_socks re Jaylah's names for McCoy and Kirk. :D
Relationships: Jaylah & Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
Kudos: 3





	The Long Way Home

Montgomery Scott had reason to be glad. He’d faced off against the Borg. He hadn’t left with a face full of alien cybernetics. He’d nabbed Jaylah from under their noses, then taken out his pursuers before they could abduct her again. Jim didn’t call him a ‘miracle worker’ for nothing.

He was not glad – not just yet. He'd gotten over the biggest hump, but had by no means reached the home stretch. He still had to get Jaylah back to being Jaylah again.

He wished Bones could’ve joined him, but the ship’s CMO was still needed to treat casualties and manage long-term cases. Thoughtful as ever, Bones had provided Scott with his stash of (barely legal) stims, detailed medical notes from his Academy days, and Jaylah’s case files. Bones didn't need to tell Scott that he deemed recovering Jaylah a deadly serious concern: shockingly, he'd skipped his customary grumbling about it all.

On the other hand, with the Borg in full retreat, the Enterprise’s most pressing repairs sorted (by and large), and Keenser ready to fill in for him, Captain Kirk could finally spare Scotty to lend a hand at the newly established Dissimilation Center. Jim was only too eager to let his friend go then, while even the ever-pragmatic and (mostly) unsentimental Spock had raised no objections - he'd even countersigned Scotty's secondment paperwork. Anyone on the Enterprise could see that Jaylah had saved them all from Krall. Everyone in Starfleet knew how crucial recovering their assimilated manpower was to the Alpha Quadrant’s three major powers. But Jim knew what Jaylah was to Scotty.

Five of Ten wasn’t going to make things easy for him.

_‘There is no more "Jaylah". There is only us. We are Borg.’_

_‘You cannot contain us. You will adapt to serve us. We are inevitable.’_

He could not stand to see the Borg speaking through her, their hive mind subjugating her personality and reducing her to their loudspeaker. To look into her remaining organic eye and struggle to find any trace of life.

He knew she must have fought like the devil against assimilation. She had survived alone against Krall and his Swarm. She was crucial in rescuing the Enterprise’s crew and getting the Franklin flying again. She had struck back against her father's murderer, screaming bloody defiance at his lying taunts. She never wavered in believing that her crew would come for her.

But she had finally met a foe she could not evade. What had the Borg said? Resisting was… ‘futile’? It certainly looked that way. If Jaylah of all people could be turned into a brainwashed drone, what hope was there for the rest of the Alpha Quadrant?

But resistance was _not_ futile. She could be brought back. She _would_ be brought back.

***

He had read every book on cybernetics he could lay his hands on. When his PADD shorted out from overuse, he raided his hardcopy library, hastily shoved into his kit bag. Stims kept him going till he lost all sense of time. He might as well have forgotten the chronometer in his quarters. He brushed aside the doctors stopping by to urge some rest on him. Sleep was nothing when your best friend needed saving from techno-organic mind control. He had to make himself useful to Dr Shiio in any way he could.

The dissimilation process was anything but smooth. Five of Ten's implants regenerated almost as quickly as they were removed. Even with their cube gone, the hive mind’s hold over Jaylah showed practically no hint of abating. She did not react when scanned, probed, or dismantled (no other word could describe it). He knew he should have been relieved that she seemed to feel no pain, but he couldn’t help the pit of unease in his stomach. The whole time, the drone remained unnervingly silent and still in her restraints. Five of Ten would simply wait till the Borg returned to reclaim her.

The breakthrough came when Dr Shiio’s deep scans discovered an implant embedded at the heart of Five of Ten's upper spinal column, well concealed among the other cybernetics violating her body. It seemed to be attempting to send and receive subspace signals, but the subspace dampener in her holding cell was blocking the transmission. To compensate, the implant was drawing more and more power from her other implants. That was likely why she had been so inert.

That’s when it occurred to Scotty: that was how the Collective was controlling her. Running the subspace signals through decryption algorithms revealed apparent directives: _Absorb. Destroy. Obey._ Evidently, the implant was a neural transceiver - its sole function was to slave Jaylah’s brain to the hive mind. If it could be neutralised, she could begin her restoration to her former self…

Unfortunately, various efforts to deactivate or dismantle the transceiver had failed. The thing seemed to have a will of its own… but it did react badly to energy overloads. The only way out seemed unthinkable – a power surge strong enough to short out the Enterprise’s own bridge. The surge had to be just powerful enough and sustained just long enough to destroy the implant without destroying Jaylah with it. Scotty emphatically did not like his options. He didn’t want to risk living with Jaylah’s loss - but if he didn’t do this, what kind of life would she have?

Security in the Dissimilation Center had always been extraordinarily tight, but Scotty and Shiio were taking no chances with this operation. All forces on board had been stood up to yellow alert. Extraneous personnel had been completely evacuated from the deck. Triple-reinforced duranium restraints held Five of Ten down, and multiple level 10 force fields surrounded her biobed and containment cell. An entire augmented platoon of armoured marines bristling with assault rifles secured the site (Scotty had no idea how they saw a thing in those helmets, but they got the job done), their hefty load-outs the envy of a Klingon commando company. The platoon commander, her 2IC, and NCOs, were under orders to maintain continuous comms with Command. Heavy weapon crews had deployed portable anti-materiel autocannons on higher ground for overwatch. For their part, Scotty and the doctor packed heavy type-2 phasers (set to maximum stun) and hyposprays (loaded with the maximum non-lethal sedative dosages). To counter Borg adaptation, all phaser weaponry were set on rotating frequencies, while half the marines had been issued with titanium projectile rifles. Meanwhile, Command was standing by to completely decompress the deck if an emergency seriously threatened to escalate beyond containment, and charges were rigged to blow the cell and its surrounding bulkheads. When dealing with the Borg, there was no kill like overkill.

Scotty and Shiio were ready if it ever came to that. Even so, he _wasn't_ going to let it (... if he could help it). Not with Jaylah depending on him. 

Everything was in place. Lieutenant Rikki Barnes advised Scotty that her troops were formed up. With the marines' standard gallows humour, she drily quipped: 'Ready to die, sir. Just make it count, will you?' Just another day at the office...

When Scotty and Shiio proceeded to hook up Five of Ten's neural transceiver to the station’s core, the drone did not remain impassive any longer. She thrashed and flailed with all of her Borg-intensified strength. All the while, she fixed Scotty with her single humanoid eye, her ocular implant's laser boring into his face with blinding intensity – if the Borg were capable of hatred, this was it. ‘ _Your attempts to assimilate this drone will fail. You can alter our physiology, but you cannot change our nature. We are Borg._ ’

Scotty stared back and growled. ‘I think we’re beginning to prove you wrong here.’ Then his expression softened, and he spoke to _her_ \- not to Five of Ten, but to Jaylah: ‘Prove her wrong for us, Jaylah.’

He flipped the switch… and for the first time in his life, he heard a Borg _scream_.

Five of Ten’s mechanically distorted keening rent the air - longer and louder than human ears could withstand. Her back arched and her organic eye widened unnaturally in a cyborg simulacrum of terror. The marines' training automatically kicked in with levelled rifles and disengaged safeties, but Scotty snapped at them to stand down.

After far too long, the transceiver disintegrated in a burst of flaring sparks and smoke.

Scotty reacted instantly, flipping another switch to discharge all remaining current through grounding cables. Five of Ten slumped back onto the biobed, motionless. Scotty could scarcely stomach the tension. After moving heaven and earth to save Jaylah, he couldn’t lose her now.

Fortunately, given the professional speed and skill with which Scotty had acted – and Jaylah's sheer toughness - there was a solid chance she had survived. Dr Shiio immediately ran her scanner over Jaylah. ‘She’s alive…’ She flashed a brief look of triumph, adding: ‘... and severed from the Collective.’ Even the marines allowed themselves a slight smile. Still, their happiness (and relief) clearly had nothing on Scotty's sheer exhilaration.

The former drone stirred, winced, and gradually opened her eye. This time, when he looked at her, Scotty found Jaylah looking back at him. Not the Borg. Not Five of Ten. Jaylah.

He reflexively reached out to her. ‘Lass. You’re back.’

Jaylah blinked, disoriented, scrambling to make sense of everything, agitated breaths coming too fast (it'd been too long since she'd last felt the _need_ to breathe) _._ The soothing-stifling-alluring-oppressing voices in her mind – voices telling her what to do, what to _think_ – were gone. _Input failure: this drone’s link to the Collective has been severed. We… I…? Alone. Not… not Borg? Designation Five of Ten, Primary Adjunct of Unimatrix 12, species… name? Jay… Jaylah. I... I am… Jaylah. I am Jaylah._

The shock of disconnection unmoored her, and she tried to make sense of where she was and what was happening to her. Surrounded by Borg, attacking the cybernetic swarm with fists, kicks, teeth, and oaths... finally overwhelmed, dragged onto a metal slab and held down, restraints tightening against her limbs, her uniform removed _(Irrelevant. Borg do not wear garments… Error. These… these things they put in my body… what have they done to me?)_ , struggling futilely to break free… the people-machines puncturing her neck with assimilation tubules, flooding her with robotic poison, her piercing scream echoing through the cube's sterile corridors... her body convulsing, that _siren whisper: Cadet Jaylah... the procedure has already started..._ the Collective resounding in her mind against her will, a legion of soulless voices inexorably drowning out her own... nanoprobes rewiring her brain, her thoughts being forcibly suppressed, alien directives surging into her excruciatingly altered mind, sweeping aside her last futile efforts to retain her individuality... fighting, fighting to keep them out of her thoughts... and then her thoughts becoming _theirs_... finally succumbing to the hive mind, the terror and despair on her face dissolving into a blank, lifeless stare (that whisper again: _Such defiance. But even you must know that resistance is futile..._ )... her last single tear silently-helplessly slipping down her cheek barely noticeable ( _Curious... this Montgomery Scotty... yes... you will make him one with us._ )... her exposed body mutilated-violated, her DNA - her essence - rewritten, metal cancer metastasizing into places where metal _should not be_ , implants invading-penetrating intimate recesses... drills-crunching-bone-saws-ripping-flesh-pain-pain-pain-pain-pain- _nonononono_ …

But then she blinked again and saw that now she was here, and Montgomery Scotty was with her, holding her hand and urging her to _calm down_ , and that sufficed to still her rising panic. And she smiled weakly and whispered, her voice her own again, still metallic but no longer monotonous. ‘Montgomery Scotty… I knew... you'd come for me... wanted you… to beat them…’

Now that Dr Shiio was fairly certain it was safe, she retracted Jaylah’s restraints and forcefield. Jaylah feebly struggled to sit up. Scotty caught her before she fell. Just in that instant, the brutalities inflicted upon her began washing over her again. She buried her face in his shirt, clinging desperately to him so she wouldn’t be swept away.

When the Borg were robbing her last remnants of free will, she had cried a single tear. Not for herself, but for the friends she would be forced to hurt. T’Laan. Shev Akria. McCoy's Bones. James Tee. And Montgomery Scotty. They would have forced her to do it to him too. Now, without the hive mind to repress her emotions, that thought was more than her suddenly free and fragile mind could stand. Again, a single tear escaped and coursed down her face. She gnashed her teeth, holding back the flood threatening to burst through to the surface - barely. She began to shiver, partly from the suddenly uninhibited surge of emotions, partly from her exo-plated body's exposure to the cold, prompting Doctor Shiio to throw a blanket around her shoulders. In the background, Lieutenant Barnes discreetly signalled her marines to shift their line of sight, awkwardly fumbling to balance keeping watch against giving the broken girl her space.

Scotty just held her. Now he could be glad. Even though Jaylah's body was still covered in Borg implants, her mind was finally free.

She could now start the long road to becoming herself again.

***

A few weeks had elapsed since Doctor Shiio began the delicate process of dissimilating Jaylah. The prudent doctor had proceeded cautiously, not wishing to prematurely remove any vital components. Between surgeries and rehabilitation, Jaylah slept heavily. ‘Comatose’ wouldn’t have been far off the mark. During her time as a Borg, she had not slept for months, leaving her with a massive psychosomatic need to recuperate.

She aggravated her exhaustion by pushing herself to the extreme in various military assessments, on which she took out her pent-up rage. The Federation had to compromise on its pacifist ideals when faced with the Borg threat. Jaylah knew she was being tested as a weapon. She was all too willing to be one: she was a warrior, and she was angry. Her fitness test results outclassed even spec ops troopers, let alone her admittedly impressive Academy entrance performance. She picked off short-exposure and long-distance targets during combat shoots in the holodeck... and promptly blacked out after staggering out of the last foxhole.

Fortunately, Jaylah eventually began to re-establish some semblance of a normal routine. From time to time, he saw her in the mess. She typically slipped in when hardly anyone was around, sat in stony silence with him, exchanged only the odd one-liner or grunt while avoiding sidelong glances (no one had been this close to an ex-Borg before), and left with just a cursory goodbye. It was disconcerting: on the one hand, she clung to him as her only friend on the station; on the other hand, it sometimes felt like she wanted to have nothing to do with him. Refusing to be deterred, Scott sent Academy coursework over to her via the PADD network. He trusted that the mental stimulation would help repair her mind and take it off her recent ordeal. Her solutions also impressed him, being more elegant and efficient than anything even he could devise. It was clear that the Borg had sharpened her already keen intellect, and downloaded their collective knowledge into her mind.

But Jaylah’s recovery wouldn’t be complete until she got her real life back. Scotty hoped a visit would go some way to helping her do that. Besides, he had some braw news for her.

Scott activated the chime to Jaylah’s quarters. Once. Twice. No answer both times. Perhaps she was still resting. Just as he turned to leave though, he was met with a brusque ‘Come in.’

Scott stepped in and greeted her, eager and anxious to see how she was progressing.

Jaylah dropped her coursework and got up from her chair. She looked directly at him and spoke as plainly as ever. ‘Montgomery Scotty. I am happy you are here.’ Scotty knew she meant it, but was there an edge to her voice…? 

He tried to think nothing of it. He figured the stuff he brought would cheer her up. First, he set down the duffel bag. ‘I got the Academy to post some of your belongings over. Just arrived this morning. It’s not much, what with Logistics being tied up right now, but I thought it’d count for something. Also, I'm pleased to hear from Doctor Shiio that your skin is healing well. That means you can get out of that patient’s garb and back into actual clothes.’ He zipped it open, revealing its contents: her ‘singing box’, combat staff, tools, and clothes. These included some sets of admin and PT attire (Lieutenant Barnes' thoughtful donation), a couple of uniforms (‘impractical for combat, and needs more pockets’, she’d once told Jim straight), her space trader wear, and the cream-white singlet, jacket, and trousers he’d bought her on Starbase Yorktown (he’d surmised correctly that she wasn’t the skirt or dress type, and the colour went so well with her alabaster complexion).

Next, he placed flowers on her desk, and offered his Starfleet mug to her. It was topped up with a curious Malayan/Hong Kong blend of coffee and tea. ‘Picked this up from the mess - I remembered what a caffeine junkie you are. Maybe it’ll “take your edge off”.’

Jaylah took the cup gingerly in her hands – she still hadn’t grown wholly accustomed to her increased muscle density and didn’t want to accidentally crush it. _How silly of Montgomery Scotty to trust me with his favourite mug… but if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be Montgomery Scotty._ Taking a tentative sip (it had been so long since she'd had caffeine), she answered him with a poker face: ‘My edge is still not off. But thank you.’

To Scotty's relief, her typically stoic facade cracked with child-like joy, the kind that always came with being engrossed in her classical music or fixing things. Or both, best of all - nothing beat the Beastie Boys' 'beats and shouting' in her ear and a wrench in her hand. Hoping to turn that smile into a laugh, he joked: ’I don’t imagine you’d find half-decent replicators on Borg cubes.’

His face fell even before the last word finished leaving his lips, gut-punched by the realisation of _just_ _what a horridly awful, stupid thing he had just let out of his big, stupid mouth_.

At first, Jaylah just glared wordlessly at him. Scotty had last seen that glare when she was hell-bent on teaching Krall a hands-on (and in-depth) lesson on his own anatomy.

A second later, though, her face crumpled. She could not lift her eyes to meet his. After moments that passed much too slowly, her voice rasped out, choked with scarcely stifled tears.

‘I don't know who I am anymore, Montgomery Scotty. I look in the mirror and I don't know who or what is staring back at me...’

She glanced away, uncharacteristically avoiding his eyes. ‘And still… still I hear them calling to me. And part of me _wants_ to go back.’

Finally, she looked up and met his eyes with the raw pain in those golden pools.

‘You speak of addiction. But you know nothing, Montgomery Scotty. You don't know what it's like being a Borg thrall.’

She rapidly closed the distance between them. For a split second, Scott was afraid she would get violent with him. Considering what he’d just blabbed to her, he felt she would be entirely justified.

She did grab him, and jerk him towards her. But she did not hurt him. She wanted him close to hold.

‘When I succumbed to the Collective, the last thing I remember was shedding one tear. Not for me. For you. If the Borg won, they would force me to assimilate you. Just like they assimilated me.

I tried so hard to resist. I fought and fought and fought. I held that thought of you. You and James Tee and Spock and McCoy's Bones… kept me holding on… when I felt so weak against Krall...’

Her voice shattered. She pounded her fists against Scotty’s shoulders. For the first time since her rescue, the tears broke through.

_‘It was all for nothing! I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t good enough. I should have been able to stop them. I should’ve… I should…’_

She shuddered, powerless to hold down the memory of assimilating Cadet Gonzales frothing to the surface of her mind. Lucia imploring her to fight back against the hive mind. Pleading for hope that some remnant of her friend remained within the woman-machine staring through her with one empty eye, a twisted mockery of the girl who'd once been so full of life. That _thing_ that had once been Jaylah stabbing assimilation tubules into her neck. Her last anguished cry... Futile. Five of Ten carried out the assimilation process efficiently. The human Gonzales became one with the Borg. Nine of Ten would make an excellent drone. The emotions of the one called Jaylah were irrelevant.

‘I remember every horror they committed through me. My thoughts were not even my own. They took my brain and played with it. Pulled me out, stuffed something else in. Unmade me. They ordered me to do the same to you - and I nearly did. I could not even _try_ to stop myself.’

She choked on her tears for a moment, fighting hard to pull herself back together, and whispered harshly: ‘I hate them for stealing my mind… and I cannot stop _wanting_ to lose it again.’

Scotty was dumbstruck. All he could think of was to tell her how sorry he was. As he’d once overheard a Malaysian crewman say, though, sorry no cure. He cast about frantically for any words to comfort his stricken friend. ‘Jaylah... what you did… it wasn’t you. You didn’t have a choice.’ Jaylah shook her head, unmoved: ‘I know. But I did it. And I remember all of it - all of them...’

He still didn't know what to say, but he knew he had to say _something_. ‘This… this is all on me, lass. If I… if I hadn’t put ideas in your head about joining Starfleet…’

Abruptly, she surprised him with a lightly touched finger to his lips. ‘Montgomery Scotty. Shut up.’

Scotty was puzzled. Those were usually words of rebuke, even abuse. Yet coming from Jaylah, it sounded… gentle? That was unlike Jaylah. Scott knew she was compassionate to the core - she saved his mates, fear of Krall be damned. But it wasn’t like her to show tenderness this openly.

She explained softly, gently, concerned to dispel any impression of harshness. ‘Not any of this is on you. You freed me of Krall. You made my house fly. You brought me to the stars. You gave me a crew.

And without you, I would still be Borg.’

There could be no worse fate for a free spirit like her. Before the Borg inescapably turned her into one of them again, she needed to seize every moment of her restored freedom, however fleeting it was. Or, really, _because_ it was fleeting.

Impulsively, Jaylah reached behind her back, undid the clasps holding her medical gown together, and let it fall to the floor, leaving her clad only in PT shorts. Scott instinctively averted his gaze, but Jaylah beseeched him not to. ‘Look at me, Montgomery Scotty. See everything they did to me.’

Seeing her now semi-bare, Scotty flinched before he could catch himself. He cursed himself for it. She was showing him her pain - the only person she'd show it all to - and he was being a coward.

The majority of Jaylah’s exterior cybernetics had been removed, but her body still bore too many visible scars from her trauma. In several places, implants had yet to be fully extricated, leaving her skin studded and lashed with metallic shards. They blemished her once immaculate markings, which she once so proudly told him meant ‘little fierce one’, her parents' dearest gift to her. Her torso was partially swathed in dermaplastic grafts resembling mummy bandages. Tainted veins stood out against white skin, still tinged grey-black by nanite poisoning. She had always been athletic, but her lithe form now displayed subtle indications of abnormally enhanced muscle tone. Her shoulders whirred with grinding servomotors. Semi-severed cables protruded like grotesque clipped wings from her left back. She unbandaged her left hand, uncovering knuckles that still bled where assimilation tubules had been extracted. Her right forearm carried half-healed gashes where a metal arm had previously been fitted over it, nerve-prosthesis interfaces now visible. Her right temple had been completely shaved for her cranial assembly to be taken apart. Up close, he saw her right eye threaded with a web of fine metal filaments. Thankfully, she had gotten back her other eye, a cloned replacement. Starfleet’s urgent imperative to rehabilitate assimilated personnel had fast-tracked regenerative therapy research by decades; numerous peacetime safeguards had been overridden, resources and expertise redirected. Yet while seeing both of her striking golden eyes again heartened him, her semi-dismantled ocular implant nearly obscured the graft.

Yet for all that, even marred by techno-organic pestilence, she was still beautiful.

She reached out. He entered her embrace, let her hold him near. It wasn't only her body that had been so utterly damaged. ‘I was the first and only member of my species assimilated. The Borg sensed my “biological distinctiveness”. They did not want to lose it. So they did this to me...’

She hung her head. Many humans may have been ashamed by their appearances, but such considerations were trifling at most to Jaylah. This went far deeper.

‘... they made me breed... with male drones... my friend cadets... when I was assimilating them.’

The shuddering sobs wracking her voice and body were now pierced with a ragged, grieving wail.

‘All this time… I only wanted you... wanted my first time to be with you. Now it shall never happen.’

She pulled herself back together, then hesitated - but only briefly. She knew what she had to ask of him. ‘I… I desire you, Montgomery Scotty. I desire to take you as my mate. Before the Borg take me again.

Montgomery Scotty... will you take me too?’

Scotty was startled by Jaylah’s unexpected forwardness. He had always thought she was solely interested in tinkering with machines. But then he began to sort it out. After being converted into a machine herself, that one interest was gone. What did that leave…? He could not fathom it; he had never fancied himself someone’s fancy, much less someone as stunning as her. Yet here he was.

Initially, he was left wordless. He just cradled her and stroked her hair. He had no idea how to respond. Romance was just not his thing. Yet he was fiercely devoted to his crewmates, and that meant he was fiercely devoted to her. Where that ended and other forms of love began was murky stuff... and... now that he knew how much she wanted him, he realised how much he wanted her back.

But not now. It was far too soon after what she'd been through; her mind and spirit were too profoundly crippled. The time for that would come, but only when she had healed. He still couldn't articulate his feelings precisely. But he knew he had to care for her no matter what, and he knew what that meant.

‘None of those things matter, lass. You’re here, now. I’m here for you too. But, Jaylah... let’s not move too hastily.’

Those golden hurt puppy eyes made him feel like he'd just shot his own dog. ‘... why?’

‘I can’t – I won’t – take advantage of you in this state.’

She turned her face away, more tears streaking down and staining her cheeks. ‘It is because... of what you see?’ He painfully realised that he'd yet again witlessly hurt her with his thoughtless words. But he was going to make it up to her, and to make sure she knew it.

He affectionately took her chin and turned her face back to him. Then he continued, kindly but firmly. ‘Now, you look at me, lassie. We’ll have none of this haver. You look lovely - you _are_ lovely, cyborg rubbish on you or no. Jaylah, I _promise_ you, we will be together. I’ll have Jim himself get us married, if you’ll have that too.

But right now, I’m going to help you through this first.’

He reached into the duffel bag. Normally, he'd have gone for the admin attire, but he pulled out her space trader wear instead. He knew how much she loved it, how it reminded her of her family. She remembered wearing it when she first chanced upon and rescued Montgomery Scotty from raiders. ‘Come on. Let’s get you back into some real clothes.’

After getting dressed, Jaylah faced him again. He could not mistake that expression of dread in her eyes – it overshadowed even her fear of Krall. Her normally self-possessed voice was reduced to a terrified whisper. ‘They’ll come for me. They never stop. Resisting is futile.’ Her voice quavered. She trembled. Jaylah never scared easily, but she had good reason to be scared.

Scotty took her hands in his. He hardened his tone to reassure her (and himself too, honestly). ‘That won’t happen, lass. We proved them wrong, you and me. And Jaylah proved Five of Ten wrong.’

She blinked at him, confused.

‘Remember when I first spoke to you while you were on that Borg ship? I used your transmission to triangulate your location, then micro-beamed a trace amount of vokaya into your implants - just enough to track you without the Borg picking up on it. Someone on board had left a gap in their shields – tiny, hardly there, really – but just barely detectable. Later, on that cube, my biodampener shorted out. You had me dead to rights. Any other drone would've assimilated me where I stood. But you stopped there - just long enough for me to hit you with the hypospray and transporter beacon.'

He took her face in his hands, touched his forehead to hers, looked her in the eye. 'You _wanted_ me to get you; you wanted me to beat them - you said it yourself. Even assimilation couldn't stop some little bit of you from fighting through their hive mind. You may have needed me to rescue you - but I needed you too.’

A flat '... what?' fell out of Jaylah's slack jaw. With her mind still processing this revelation, Scotty pushed his advantage. ‘Resistance is not futile. We did it once. We’ll do it again.’

She was still merely half-convinced: ‘But we… the Borg adapt. What if it’s impossible?’

He refused to falter, recalling his encouragement to her back on Altamid, when the death place still terrified her. ‘Maybe it’s not. Remember, lassie - what I told you once. My wee granny used to say, “ye cannae break a stick in a bundle”. You are not alone, Jaylah. Don’t you give up on us. Because we’ll sure as hell never give up on you. That is what being part of a crew is all about.

And I know if it were me on that Borg ship and you on the ISS Jellyfish, you would’ve done the same for me.’

Jaylah dwelled on his words for a moment, recollecting how they’d once gotten her back on her feet. They gave her the strength to face down and beat down Krall. Now, she and Montgomery Scotty would take that strength and beat the Borg over their collective heads with it, too. ‘That’s what being part of a crew is all about…’

Sensing that she was coming around, Scotty pulled out the clincher. ‘Captain Kirk just got his request for your transfer to the Enterprise approved. He put it in even before I asked him. Bloody hell, Lieutenant Barnes wanted you in her platoon too. She gave Kirk quite the fight, didn't give a toss about rank... but you know Kirk's way of persuading people. And even Barnes had to know where you really belong. Threw her weight behind his application to boot.'

Unprecedented casualties were compelling Starfleet to press its best or most senior cadets into active service, decentralising their training and graduation to their assigned ships and bases. Given his own experience, Jim Kirk wasn't about to miss this opportunity (when had he ever passed up an advantage?). The confluence of Jaylah's formidable academic and military records, Jim's signature cocktail of schmooze and persistence, and Spock's and Bones's unreserved professional backing, inevitably persuaded Headquarters that Jaylah was easily one of the best. Moreover, without even waiting to be asked, the entire crew had attached their unstinting endorsements to Kirk’s application in (according to HQ's somewhat exasperated reply) 'an outrageous encumberment of the communications network' (more prosaically called 'spam'). Whatever the label, it worked.

‘You'll complete your training under Mister Spock's firm hand. Trust me, he won't go easy on you. Then again, you’ve never been one for eas…'

She hugged him even harder than when she'd heard about her Academy acceptance. He was quite sure those were happy tears streaming out of her eyes now.

He wasn't about to stop while on a roll. ‘Jaylah, the whole crew of the best ship in the fleet's pulling for you. To the end of the line. And you've just become the Federation's ace in a hole. You reckon the Borg are the only ones who can steal knowledge? You’ve got all the data the Collective's ever assimilated in that fair head of yours. You hate yourself for what they made you do? Turn it back on 'em.

Think about it: even under their control, you fought back. How much more can you do now that you're free and with us?’

She was drying her tears. The beginnings of a smile began to take shape on her face. She didn't know exactly how they'd make it through, but she knew now that they _would_.

Finally, he drove it home. ‘So those things can try coming for you all they bloody well want. We – you and I - are not going to let them have you.’ Normally, Montgomery Scott would’ve shrugged and rolled his eyes at the melodrama… but this was not normal. ‘And if those metal bast**ds even think to lay a metal finger on y…’

Jaylah cut him off by forcefully drawing him even tighter into her embrace. She still hadn’t gotten used to her cyborg strength. So she kissed him too dearly, held him too tight. ‘Montgomery Scotty. Before anything else happens, I want to be with you. Now.’

Scotty struggled to comprehend what just happened. He needed help believing she was with him tonight.

He reciprocated her gestures. ‘Jaylah, lassie… they won’t have you. But you, me – _we_ have each other - _will_ have each other.’

Recovering her resolve, Jaylah, his 'fierce one', recalled that feral fighting spirit he knew and loved so well: ‘We are Enterprise.’


End file.
